“I have my own form of security, Livingstone,” he said. “The security of my faith.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Worldly goods mean nothing in comparison to the riches that await us in the kingdom of heaven.”
“I’d best hire a van then, when I go.”
He looked again at the lad Dave had dropped. “Perhaps if I gave them some of my little brasses from the fireplace in the dining room it would make up for their unhappy experience.”
“Shit, Rev, you don’t understand.”
But he smiled. “Nor do you, Livingstone, I fear.”
Dave was standing over the body, waiting for advice. Whatever we did, I knew Eddie Craig was going to be really pissed off with me now. Even Blyth wouldn’t be far enough away. It might have to be Yorkshire.
“Let’s dump them in their car, Donc.”
Dave grunted and heaved the body over his shoulder. In the hallway I stepped over another crumpled heap so I could peer out of one of the little side windows into the street. Outside stood the empty Jag. But in front of it was now parked another one, same colour, also empty. My brain started digesting this fact for future reference. I decided it was definitely a bad sign. Then a lump hammer came smashing through the door.
18
When I opened my eyes there were two Eddie Craigs in front of me, swimming nauseatingly together. My head ached and, come to think of it, so did several other parts of my body. I was firmly fastened to a chair with my own belt. I could feel the VW buckle digging into my wrists.
I couldn’t place where I was just yet, but the room smelled mainly of piss. I took a guess that it probably wasn’t Craig’s nice house in Ravenshead. Maybe it was Lump Hammer Stan’s place I’d been invited to today. He’s a pisser all right, if ever there was one.
I had a vague memory of a few minutes of violent chaos after Stan had smashed in the door of the vicarage. That’s the difference, isn’t it? Me, I got Dave to knock politely when we went in. But you don’t get the civilities in some firms. Stan had two or three lads with him, and they’d barged me aside so that they could wade into Dave, who was already handicapped with a body just starting to come awake over his shoulder and another under his feet. I remember turning round to help him out, but I didn’t get very far. There’d been a movement that I only caught out of the corner of my eye, and then something hit me hard on the side of the head. I’d gone down, seeing the floor through a sort of red haze, and waited for the boots to go in.
When nothing happened for a second, I looked up. I could see Dave giving a couple of leather jackets a good thumping. He was enjoying himself far too much to notice what was happening to me. I’d tried to call his name, but my voice came out as a croak. And I didn’t get a second chance as the first boot arrived, and my face hit the floor. They’d dragged me out head first after that.
Now here was Craig himself, gradually starting to come into focus, looking fat and complacent. He’s a short-arsed little bloke with a pot belly and a bald head, too many jowls and a lot of flashy rings on his fingers. He was sitting on a white plastic garden chair, with a glass of beer in front of him on a white plastic table. He looked like Willie the Gnome on his holidays.
Like I said, I try to keep out of Craig’s way. But he knows me, of course. My reputation precedes me.
“Ah, McClure. Glad you could drop in. I hope you’re comfortable.”
Comfortable I was not. As the room came more into focus, I saw that I was facing a big window behind Craig’s head. The view out there wasn’t encouraging. There was a great tangle of undergrowth, the top of a high fence, and an even higher screen of dark conifers. I guessed the nearest house was some distance away.
Craig took a drink of his beer, shifting his pot belly, and looking at me with a little smile on his face that didn’t make me feel any better. It was the sort of smile the rabbit sees on the face of the ferret.
“Nice garden,” I said. “Did you design it yourself?”
“It’s a mess,” he said. “It needs work. But, of course, I have people to do the heavy stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“Cutting and burning, that sort of thing,” he said. “Chopping. Digging.”
Lump Hammer Stan laughed. It was the worst noise I’d heard since the last Bjork single. Then I noticed the racks on the wall to my right. They were full of tools, beautifully polished and sharpened. There were spades, forks, a rake and a hoe, secateurs, shears, Stanley knives, pincers, a soldering iron, a baseball bat and a couple of electrodes attached to a car battery. Some funny gardening went on around here.
“Was there something you wanted to talk about, Eddie?”
Craig stopped smiling and looked a bit miffed. Since he got to be top man he prefers to be called Mr Craig. I knew that, and he knew I knew that. He also seemed to think I was lacking in the social niceties by getting straight to the point. He leaned forward, spraying some of the froth from his beer as the smile turned into a snarl.
“I’ve sent some of my assistants to chat to you twice this week, but you wouldn’t co-operate. I don’t like that, McClure. I don’t like that at all.”
Twice? Up Top Forest the other day, yes, when Moxon had miraculously appeared. But when else? Well, there was the day before, when we wasted all those large fries.
“Hell, I didn’t know those plonkers at McDonald’s were your lads, Eddie. I hadn’t realised that you employed amateurs these days.”
There were stirrings behind me, and heavy breathing, like I’d accidentally wandered into a cave where grisly bears were hibernating and they’d taken offence. I was feeling a bit hurt that Craig had only sent the second string out for me that first time, when even Mick Kelk had earned the attention of Lump Hammer straight off. This sort of thing is important to your prestige.
“Sorry about that, Eddie. But now we’ve met up, what was this chat about?”
Craig poured himself another drink, slowly, as if giving himself time to calm down. He still didn’t offer me one. No manners, this lot.
“How’s business at the moment, McClure? Going well? Any problems?”
I hesitated at that. Craig probably knew all about my business. He’d never interfered so far, but there was no point in lying to him.
“Things have gone a bit quiet at the moment,” I said. “The plods are a bit keen too.”
“A bit of a downturn, eh? A rough patch? And of course you lost the services of young Thompson for a while, didn’t you?”
“Do you know something about that?”
He waved his glass. “Only what I hear. It seems somebody’s causing a bit of trouble. A few spanners in the works here and there. Being a nuisance, you might say.”
I knew he couldn’t really be worried about my problems. So did this mean Craig’s business was being affected too? If so, it put a whole different slant on things. Apart from anything else, if whoever had been responsible was prepared to upset Craig as well as me, they maybe weren’t safe to mess with.
“I wondered whether you might have any suspicions about the source of your problems,” said Craig.
“None at all,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
Craig put his glass down, almost sadly. “You see, McClure,” he said, “when I observe you apparently doing nothing at all about the downturn in your business, and when I see that one of your boys has been taken in by the police, I start to wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“Whether I need to look any further for the spanner in the works. Whether your so-called problems aren’t just a smokescreen. I’m thinking Stones McClure is getting a bit greedy. Moving in on my territory.”